blonde poker forum

Local casino and Matt Frankland is home for a visit and has been on a night out before joining the .25/.50 table. He appears sober and to be taking it fairly seriously. Sat with the max of £200 on a table where stacks ranged from £30 to c£350.
First time I've met him but his record and reputation are obviously good.
Two hands of minor interest so far, one where he called a preflop raise and checked to the river where he made a small bet (into a tiny pot) on the 4 river holding A4. Called by AK and good.
The second he called a river bet of £26 with third pair poor kicker and was again good.
He's also flatted a couple of small raises and folded to aggression pre and opened a few pots himself.
As you'd expect he's very comfortable with himself in this game.

Hand in question Matt opens to £3 from utg+2, I raise from BB with  Ac Qs playing just over £200 and we go to the flop HU
Flop   8c 6c 4s (£25)

I check, I wouldn't always but I expect him to float most boards and OOP I don't want a big pot to develop.

Turn is   5h I check again and Matt bets £13.75. Calling feels obligatory since I'd expect him to have bet any pair, set or two pair type hands on the flop. Few if any sevens in his range?

River  Tc  (£52.50)

Now, I have the  Ac, is leading here good?
Or check raising?

Or do we just check and give up?

edit: I did check, he bet £43 on the river

Wouldn't 3bet pre here vs someone as good as him who is never likely to fold.

As played give up and play pots with the other people at the table imo. You would surely bet the flop with NFD in a 3 bet flop.

I would flat Matt pre here and call most c bets. Seems in keeping u don't want to play a big pot with him.

Also I'd just c/f the turn.

I'd fold now as played but I don't see why you wouldn't 3bet pre in this spot against someone who's raise/calling range is going to be so wide.

Can someone enlighten me?

You're playing a pot oop against the only decent player on the table. Like dean said he's just gonna peel a load. Betting lead counts for little if you're just gonna check twice

Sorry my bad, I read it as villain was OOP.

I don't like depolarising vs someone as good as Franky playing about 6 billion levels lower than his skill level; he's going to make life hell for us.

It's good to have hands this strong in our peeling range vs opponents who are going to put a lot of pressure on us on A high boards since in theory they are better for is range than ours.

I think once you get to the turn you've thought about the hand in the wrong kind of way.


Franky is an accomplished cash game player and will definitely check back a lot of his one pair (if not all) hands because he expects you to bet the flop with your overpairs and flush draws most of the time, so you're either going for the c/r with the nut flush draw in which case he really doesn't want to be blown off his showdown value if he has 77, 6x, 8x or something similar. SO when he checks back I'm a lot more worried than if he had bet since a bet would be polarised between bluffs, semi bluffs and nutted hands which makes our hand a decent bluff catcher bearing in mind that he'll barrel club turns which we can continue on.

So as played I like the flop check, but once he checks back i'm done with the hand unless we turn a club, A or Q. Just c/f turn and don't think too much about it.

Oh and as far as c/r or lead river goes, that's complete suicide. We've taken this bluff catchy line so we don't get bluffed on dry runouts, but it does turn our hand face up (as AK/AQ) so if you start trying to rep something else Franky is quickly going to smell a rat and call/jam.

Whenever you are considering a bluff, you have to think about the story your selling, and if t's consistent with the story you've told on the previous streets. In this case, we've told Franky we have a bluff catcher, so we can't now take off on rivers which are good for his range and terrible for ours. I think this thought process was just a case of "I don't want to lose this pot, how can I not lose this pot" which we are all a victim of at some point.

For me it's an obligatory turn fold.

Like

Incredibly - and I don't say this often, given how I apparently play hands - NitTendencies has said exactly what I was going to say.

However, I prefer 3betting pre (as played), especially if he is calling wide but this needs to be just some of the time.

Your check on the flop defines your hand pretty well, though (3b/check seems pretty AceQueeny), so a bluff on the river is never going to work.

In depth analysis from that odd Greek guy here.

Jamies nailed it again

Im just disappointed Franky isn't battered!

Would absolutely 3bet pre flop for pure value would rather have a strong depolarised 3bettign range here at least with a younger image.

As yourself who is abit older everyone just changes a bunch though.

I wish I hadn't started this thread now.
I obviously appreciate the advice and thoughts and take them on board but now I'm faced with being 6,000,000,000 levels below someone who many poker players haven't even heard of, and to cap that, I'm old!

I dwelled on the river and eventually folded having decided that I was right with my read that Matt had a similar hand to mine, ie AQ/AJ/A10 and that I was only winning vs one of those.
I showed the Ac though and suggested that a shove would have been hard for him to call and he declared that he had the same hand as me with no clubs but that the club on the river was a good card for him to rep. He suggested that he'd have folded had I lead the river, or had I check raised.
He may have been fibbing.

It's tricky because I won't get many chances to play against people like Matt at stakes that I am comfortable with and I didn't want to avoid him because if we don't test ourselves we don't learn or improve. I picked a bad spot to get involved though, should have just kept raising his BB from the cut off really, that might have been fun.

dont get drowned by someones repuatation, Franky is world class but he isn't there to go after you and prove what a sicko he is with all this moves, he's just playing his game and having fun.

Play strong, don't level yourself  or get intimidated by him and you'll get along just fine even against players or frnky's calibre.

I prefer peeling over 3betting but for reasons posted above you can 3bet.

As played just fold but I'd deffo cbet because you'll make Franky fold a fair bit of his peeling range. I'd barrel any 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, J, Q, K and probably check call an A.

3 betting is absolutely fine as you absolutely crush his opening range and he 'll never fold a loada hands we totally dominate.

How many players were on the table? If it was short-handed then UTG+2 means something very different to if it was 9 or 10 handed.

3betting is much more interesting in the first instance than in the second instance. 3betting AQo vs an early position raise is generally pretty bad. Especially when fairly deep and out of position, and especially when your opponent is competent. You should depolarise against poor players who will play weakly postflop, but out of position to a good player it is much better to show him respect and flat AQo when he has raised from EP.

You might think "Yeah but I am going to miss the flop more often than I hit ... isn't it better to 3bet so I can take the initiative and hope to win the pot even when I don't hit the flop?" This works okay against bad players who are going to call your 3bet with most of their range, and then just meekly fold to your cbet when they miss the flop. But a competent player will not just give up on every flop he misses. He will continue on many flops even when he misses, by either bluff-raising or floating with backdoor equity hands.

It might feel 'weak' to call the raise then check-fold when you miss the flop. But it is going to feel even weaker to 3bet pre, then cbet the flop, then check fold the turn. You hand may feel 'hard to play' without the initiative and out of position. But believe me, it is going to feel MUCH MUCH harder to play in a bloated 3bet pot with deepish stacks if you cbet the flop and your opponent does not fold!

This is even sometimes going to be the case if you flop top pair. Imagine you 3bet pre and the flop comes something like Qh Jh 7s. You cbet your TPTK and villain calls. How happy are you feeling now? It's not like the SPR is really low now so you can just get all-in comfortably on the turn. If your opponent was a bad player you'd probably be feeling okay about things. But against a good player what are you doing on most turns? Is your opponent really going to stack off with something like KQ or AJ? He is a good player, not a spew monkey.

The trick is to realise that when you just call preflop you don't have to check-fold every flop that you miss. You can make a few check-raise bluffs, and you can float some flops out of position. Sometimes you get Ace high to showdown and win. Sometimes you pick up a second barrel when an Ace or Queen turn. Other times you can bluff the river.

Frankie causing a lot of trouble on the PHA boards.

do not like 3betting this hand oop v someone good this deep, unless you are feeling brave. Raw equity means little 400bb deep.

As played c/f turn or c/f river. Leading river accomplishes nothing. CR river sells a weird-ass story that may or may not workout given your image. Age may play a significant factor.

Will people please stop reminding me.